Life in Wire, Gems and Stanzas

Archive for the ‘life’ Category

My father’s Alzheimer’s has taken hold much more than a few months ago. If he even remembers that my mother is somehow related to him, by blood or marriage, he calls Mom by the name of his long dead sister. He is also adamant about getting a job and helping out his also long-dead parents, and needs to go “home”. In this case, home is where he lived as a young teen.

This is the “sundown effect”. Symptoms of dementia tend to have a circadian rhythm, and usually are worse at sundown or after. When I talk to Dad at other times of the day, he’s like he always has been recently – present in the moment, whatever that is for him. He remembers when he is told, or at least imagines he remembers, what he did a few hours ago or sometimes a few days ago, on the better days but can’t remember how long ago it was.

At sunset, what I now accept as “presence” fades away. While before he only spoke to us of stories from the distant past, even though they weren’t the stories we remember, and thought they happened recently despite the intervening years, now he lives out those stories daily around sundown.

My father started working to assist our parents before he was a teenager – nine years old sounds familiar. Unlike many Newfoundlanders, we were not a fishing family. I’m not really sure what we were, but fishing has never been mentioned. At the age of 9 Dad took a job of some sort, and this is where his mind is now.

My father was a nine-year old 76 years ago.

The telephone next to me is flashing that it has a message from my mother. The messages are often innocuous, but I know the day is coming when it won’t be. This year, I’m trying to decide to go home to see Dad before the event we know is coming, the event in which he no longer responds knowingly to anyone, or if I should simply wait and go home after the next event in which he simply no longer responds at all, and his body finally gives up.

In a long ago comment, someone asked me to talk about my family. I doubt that person is still around, looking at my blog, but here’s a little piece of it. I wrote this late last year, but it’s taken a while to be willing to put it on public display.

Shrapnels of Time

by Paul Bishop – December 3, 2009

My father is old
His memory is shot full of holes
Replaced with whatever seeps through
From earlier times

Some of them are false memories
He doesn’t know that
Still his emotions from them are strong
And he is defensive about being proven wrong

He doesn’t realize how it affects us
When he accuses us of what hasn’t happened
In places where he hasn’t been
Of how we have wronged him

Yet forgets our names in the next breath
But he may laugh with old stories
That are good even if not true or slightly off
And we smile and nod and pretend too

The new year started with a whimper as I survived my series of 4 colds, or one long one with healthy relapses. Writing hasn’t been done in favour of my jewellery business. I hope to get some new words out of my head sometime. I don’t know if I’m suffering writer’s block or just tired and already wintered-out.